tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post8882546140377404206..comments2024-03-29T15:04:20.549+11:00Comments on ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly: Turning back desperate refugees to their probable death: 1939Helshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-85426050214641755232017-03-09T23:31:08.033+11:002017-03-09T23:31:08.033+11:00Annie
I usually find modern comparisons to the 19...Annie<br /><br />I usually find modern comparisons to the 1933-45 era difficult. Not because I think the comparisons aren't valid but because we always hope for progress since the lowest point in human history. But examine the prison camps on rocky Pacific Islands (eg Nauru and Manus Island) that enclose asylum seekers as if they were victims of the most brutal Nazis. The apparent reasons for the prison camps were a] to remove the financial incentive for the "people smugglers" to send boats to Australia, b] to secure Australia’s borders and create a fair and orderly migration and c] to prevent people embarking on a voyage across dangerous seas with the ever present risk of death. Oh really???<br /><br />The world's wealthiest nations have been accused by Amnesty (and by Helen) of leaving poorer countries bearing the brunt of global refugee crisis. Jordan, which has taken in 2.7 million+ refugees, Turkey with 2.5 million+; Pakistan, 1.6 million; and Lebanon with 1.5 million+. Shame on the wealthy countries :(((Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-85860584680010494222017-03-09T08:54:48.833+11:002017-03-09T08:54:48.833+11:00present US political activity is showing me how th...present US political activity is showing me how the NAZI party were able to take over from sensible minds. I had always wondered Why Didn't Somebody Stop It?<br />Well nobody is stopping it now.<br />Mentally defective Americans are harming or even shooting randomly encountered people they perceive as the enemy [already too many incidents to list here], and all because they have a president who has made statements that look like permission, approval and encouragement to do this.<br />We are all on the streets of Germany and it is 1938 again.<br />Write to your Federal MP about this. See if you can distract them from their real estate procurements.Ann ODynehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01159263330547329077noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-13557914683189579512017-03-09T01:11:36.006+11:002017-03-09T01:11:36.006+11:00Joseph
I thought the evidence might be spotty, un...Joseph<br /><br />I thought the evidence might be spotty, until I found "The St Louis Diary of Fritz Buff". Teenage Fritz Buff ended up in Antwerp (Belgium) after the ship returned to Europe.<br /><br />“I was there for six months and I was lucky enough to get out of there before the Germans came in. They came in May and I got out in December. Of the ship passengers, who didn’t get out when the Germans overran Holland and Belgium and parts of France, we lost 260.” He eventually ended up in the USA, as he had originally hoped.Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-45168105478160944942017-03-08T21:51:29.486+11:002017-03-08T21:51:29.486+11:00Hels history has always suggested that all the pas...Hels history has always suggested that all the passengers who had to stay on the ship were returned to Hamburg. None escaped. Yet you write that hundreds of them were saved by countries in Western Europe. I hope the modern version of St Louis history is correct.Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07701188167981018244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-19748016063028306512017-03-08T09:34:17.743+11:002017-03-08T09:34:17.743+11:00Deb
Nicholas Winton was my absolute hero. And hug...Deb<br /><br />Nicholas Winton was my absolute hero. And hugely successful in saving those 700 children's lives. But why did he have to organise the train trips, find foster parents in Britain, fund the project and beg the government for visas with just a small band of volunteers. Why didn't the British government say, for example, we don't want any foreign adults arriving on our shores, but let us offer safe haven to 250,000 innocent children?Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-81527946500871655992017-03-08T09:27:44.973+11:002017-03-08T09:27:44.973+11:00Andrew
no-one would want to leave their country, ...Andrew<br /><br />no-one would want to leave their country, parents, jobs and friends voluntarily. But if people are daily faced with death in Syria, South Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia or Libya, seeking asylum in other countries might seem the only way to protect themselves and their children.<br /><br />I have a proposal. Of the c193 countries in the world, let us estimate that 43 of them can't even feed their own citizens. That leaves 150 countries that must take their fair share of asylum seekers, after security checks have been satisfied. If a nation earns 5% of world GDP, then they should accept 5% of the desperate asylum seekers.Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-13602598626740391242017-03-08T09:13:56.655+11:002017-03-08T09:13:56.655+11:00Parnassus
The growth of Fascism and racism in the...Parnassus<br /><br />The growth of Fascism and racism in the inter-war era was usually seen as a largely German problem. But British Fascism was becoming ever stronger under the leadership of people like Archibald Ramsay and Sir Oswald Mosley. In Spain, Franco and the various right-wing parties were booming from 1931 on. A nasty authoritarian regime was installed in Portugal in 1933. And as you say about the 1920s and 30s in the USA, legislation and policy were moving against marginal populations, especially people deemed not white enough. <br /><br />In a sense then, by 1939 it was almost too late to save refugees's lives. (Not that too many countries tried). In Australia, for example, it wasn't until Arthur Calwell became Minister for Immigration as soon as WW2 ended that European migrants and citizens from the British Dominions would be warmly welcomed. Too late for the millions who were murdered during the war, but great for those who somehow survived.Helshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02849907428208235392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-84366130975032996062017-03-07T22:10:45.019+11:002017-03-07T22:10:45.019+11:00If the British had not given visas to 700 Czech ch...If the British had not given visas to 700 Czech children in 1939, Winton could not have succeeded with his Kindertransport project. Without visas, those children would have been returned back to their certain deaths.Debnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-27038498140727885582017-03-07T22:06:05.784+11:002017-03-07T22:06:05.784+11:00Most of this I knew about. They were people, quite...Most of this I knew about. They were people, quite rightly, in fear of their lives because of something they could not change or even pretend to not be. Sorry, but I really cannot see the connection to most present day refugees, who unfortunately I agree with forces from the red neck right in that they are mostly economic refugees who use their difference or not for their claim. As far as I can see rohingya muslims in Burma are quite deserving and make a good fit for Australia. Whatever we do, we should not take too many from any one racial group now. Small numbers of very deserving refugees from around the world will make a cohesive and peaceful Australia, and the quota does not have to be reduced, just the mix altered to make it work better.<br /><br />We are in very different times and circumstances if compared to the 1940s. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3067098918914268503.post-87354590859310809302017-03-07T21:38:31.049+11:002017-03-07T21:38:31.049+11:00Hello Hels, Perhaps the worst aspect of the Nazi ...Hello Hels, Perhaps the worst aspect of the Nazi crisis was the anti-Semitically fueled complicit agreement of much of the rest of the world. Only when political safety of the entire world was threatened did other countries make any effort. It is shocking to read stories of the 1920's and 30's when white supremacist policies were actually gaining hold in the U.S., both casually and formally. Books such as Sinclair Lewis' 1922 Babbitt portray this attitude, as do the activities of the KKK and even the official policies of the greatest U.S. colleges, whose admission practices, that developed into today's policies, were originally formulated to keep out Jews, Blacks, gays and anyone not properly "white and WASPy"--the same people targeted by the Nazis.<br />--JimParnassushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08958901307538141468noreply@blogger.com